The Scioneer (12 page)

‘How is
our
stash?’ she growled,
focusing her gaze on Zevon, her right hand man.

‘Low,
Roma. We’ve been pushing it hard lately and there hasn’t been a
chance to…’ Zevon began, by way of an apology.

‘Don’t
worry. There’s plenty of time before the pack-clash tonight.’ Of
all of them, she knew that Zevon would never betray her. She stared
into his golden eyes and felt something stirring inside her. She
could smell the lust in him. Maybe later, she thought, I’ll give
him the honour of climbing on to my back. Maybe.

Roma
had known
Zevon all her life: they had mugged their first kid together in a
back alley near The Academy on a hot summer night in 2032. She
remembered how the kid had pissed himself when they appeared and
how they had taken his creds, leather vest and signet ring and then
beaten him senseless just for the thrill of it, just because they
hadn’t imagined that he would have handed over all his possessions
without a fight. Good times, she thought. It was even Zevon who,
two years later, when just the sound of heroin sizzling on a spoon
was starting to upset her stomach, suggested they try something
new, and offered her a vial of Lupinex. They had never looked back.
Six years on: no family, no job, no fixed abode, and no belongings
to speak of, and yet Roma Bruce was a queen, with no
regrets.

‘Show me
then,’ she ordered, and the five turned out the pockets of their
hoodies and shorts to reveal what little cash and drugs they had
between them. ‘We
are
low,’ she
murmured. ‘Give me one each and fight amongst yourselves for
whatever’s left.’ Dahlia Ortega, the only other female in the pack,
a tall grey-haired girl of seventeen, who would have been beautiful
had it not been for the long sideburns and patches of rough fur on
her cheeks, curled her lip at the order.

‘Problem,
bitch?’ snapped Roma, aggressively, and Dahlia lowered her eyes and
joined the others. Roma lay down on her front in the doorway while
the pack prepared their hypos. If the pain in her legs was
excruciating, she didn’t show it.

‘Where
would you like it, Roma?’ asked the twins, Ronnie and Reggie, in
unison.

‘One in
the back of each knee, one in my spine, two in the neck,’ she
replied, and her five loyal lieutenants rolled up her clothing and
obediently eased their needles into her flesh. She growled in
pleasure and ran her long tongue over her teeth, allowing herself a
moment to think about Zevon slipping himself into her before she
felt the drugs working in her muscles.

The band
of five were scrapping on a grass verge over the remaining
gel-caps, catching each other with sharp canines and pointed nails,
drawing blood if need be, to make sure they got their share. ‘Hold
back,’ shouted Roma. ‘We’ve got three hours to sunset, five to
curfew. Save your energy for the hunt.’

Chapter
16

Danny
Calabas
was so shaken up by Gorski’s needles, that no amount of licking
himself could draw him from his waking nightmare: he needed
something else. His dragged his sorry figure upstairs to the
Swinging Hammocks and unlocked the door of one of the cells. He’d
had his eye on one of the new Eastern Europan ‘exchange students’
since the day she arrived. Her name was Beatrise, but Danny didn’t
know or care. She had been studying to be a clinical psychologist
in Riga, when she had been approached by one of Pechev’s associates
in the mafia, who lured her to London with the promise of a budding
career in a mental institution in Camberwell. Here she was,
however, cowering - more like patient than doctor - in the corner
of her cell. She looked like she hadn’t slept, eaten or washed in
days, but Calabas didn’t mind. He even preferred his girls that
way, and grabbing her viciously by the wrist, he swung her petite
frame on to the bed. She tried to protest, crying out in her own
language, but Calabas only gave her a few light slaps around the
face to shut her up. Beatrise whimpered as he pulled up her filthy
dress, ripped off his jacket and undid his belt and zip with one
hand, awkwardly pushing his denim shorts down to his knees. She
wasn’t ready for him, would never have been, but Calabas pressed
the weight of his bloated body against her and forced himself
inside, blotting out the sickening thoughts of Gorski, his bitch
and the sordid deal as he did so. The whole sick affair lasted only
a matter of minutes before Calabas grunted in pleasure, broke wind
poisonously and rolled off Beatrise. ‘Get out,’ he mumbled, and
when she didn’t move, but instead lay sobbing next to him, still
half-trapped underneath his bulk, he screamed the words in her
face, spittle flying from his lips, and she pulled herself away and
ran from the room. He didn’t care where she went, or even if she
tried to escape. He pulled the grimy sheet over his head and fell
into a fitful sleep.

***

Vidmar
was already beginn
ing to
feel the sting of pressure when Pechev beeped him. He went to the
skypephone just down from the Mash-Up, thumbprinted and called him
straight back.

‘Any progress?’
Pechev asked.

‘I’m
sitting outside The Shangri-La - you know, Calabas’ club on Upper
Street? – Gorski’s inside.’

‘Why is
he there?’ Pechev sounded genuinely confused.

‘He’s
been having some ooh-la-la with one of Danny’s dancers, a woman
named Crystal Purcell. My guess is he’s trying to cut some kind of
protection deal for her, or maybe for both of them. I can’t quite
work it out.’

‘Well,
Vidmar, my boy, I suggest you go in there and see if you
can
work it out. There’s half a
million cred in this for you, in case you had forgotten. I’d like
to see a little - how do you say? – hussle. Otherwise I might have
to let every two-bit hired street-thug know that Doctor Gorski is
fair game. Where’s Delić?’

‘Probably
a million miles away. I’ve got to go.’

He
crossed the street and approached the two uniformed bouncers
standing with their hands
crossed in front of them. One of them, Stanislav,
recognised Vidmar and almost smiled when Vidmar pushed a couple of
vials of Torox into his outstretched hand.

‘You want in?’
rumbled the doorman.

Vidmar
nodded.

‘You
carrying?’

Vidmar
nodded again, pushing his jacket back to show the 38 Bertruzzi at
his waist.

‘No
trouble in there, Vidmar.
OK? Bring it outside if you have to.’

‘That’s
the plan, Stan.’

The bouncer
tilted his head towards the doors and Vidmar walked in.

Any hopes
he had of finding Lek and Crystal evaporated as he stepped into the
darkness. At this time of the day, the majority of clubbers were
already inside and the booth selling nocto-goggles and phono-gloves
had already closed. Vidmar shuffled blindly through the crowd,
keeping his hand on the pistol at his hip. He closed his eyes and
tried to stay focused, but he felt the press of the clubbers and
the sense of failure closing in on him. Pechev’s words were still
ringing in his ears. Pushing his way through the throng, through
the din of plucked electro-zithers and droning digiteridoos, he
made his way to the bathroom.

Lek stood
stock still and held Crystal close as he watched Vidmar feeling his
way through the crowd towards them, his frowning face floating in
the electric green of the nocto-vision. He walked so close by, Lek
felt Vidmar’s hand touch his arm, watched him turn and look
straight into Lek’s eyes, but see nothing. His scar looked as livid
as a fresh whiplash, and Lek felt a shiver of revulsion.

Vidmar
stared
for a moment at the young women on the other side of the two
way-mirror, touching up their make-up and pouting as they applied
fresh lip-skins. A sense of calm and purpose washed over him as
soon as he rubbed some Bloodhound into his gums, but then, he felt
something more: a tingling, an itching in the palm of his hand told
him that Gorski had been within reaching distance - they had
touched! - and he turned and ran from the bathroom and back into
the blackness of the club.

Chapter
17

Lek and
Cryst
al were out of the
door, past the bouncers and sprinting along the street to the
car-park hand in hand, when Delić’s bike came hurtling round the
corner. Lek dragged Crystal back into the shadows of a shop doorway
just in time. His heart was pumping and he cursed his own audacity:
it had been a bold move visiting Calabas, something he wouldn’t
have considered doing the day before. But Lek was trapped in a
corner and had to change his tactics. Had to change who he was.
‘This isn’t a game,’ he said to himself under his breath, but he
knew deep down that it was exactly that: a game of life and death.
He had stayed too long in one place, taken too many chances and now
they had found him. It was their move. He peered around the
doorway, convinced, as he had been all afternoon, that there was
somebody watching them. He saw Delić approaching the entrance to
the club, checking a textabeep as he went.

***

‘Delić,’
said Stanislav ‘What’s with you guys today?’

‘What do
you mean?’
Delić asked,
his speech still slurred.

‘Your
buddy Vidmar’s already inside. What’s going on?’

Delić
pushed
past them and ran into the darkness, breaking the rhythm of the
sensual chill-out groupthink as he sent clubbers clattering into
one another and knocked a couple to the ground. He had to get to
Gorski before Vidmar had him in mistress-cuffs, had him back in
Pechev’s office, had his hands on the half-million cred. Delić took
a look at the flashing figures on the iHound - Gorski had to be
close. He barrelled his way through the crowd, found the back door
marked ‘Private’ and was bathed in light once again. Upstairs – the
iHound vibrating in his palm as it sensed the iHare close by -
sixty feet away - taking the steps three at a time – thirty feet
away – the doors of the Swinging Hammocks’ cells – twenty feet –
the skinny blonde girl, crying, sitting on the floor, pointing –
the iHound finding its mark and letting out a high-pitched
electronic bark as Delić burst through the flimsy door and only saw
the shape of a man hiding beneath the bed-sheet.

Delić
, his pulse
thumping in his eardrums, his head still bleary and his judgement
clouded from the sloth-extract, thought only of taking revenge on
Gorski and stealing his precious recipe book. For an instant, Delić
saw a vision of his own future: Pechev’s drug empire in the palm of
his hand: more women and cred and goji berries than he could ever
wish for, and he pulled the Meisters from their holsters and
unloaded two whole clips into the body on the bed. The sound was
deafening in such a cramped space. He stood in the mist of cordite
and watched the blood stains blossom like camellia flowers, before
taking his clasp-knife out of his pocket, reaching under the sheet
and pulling out the corpse’s right hand. He placed the dead hand
against the bedside table and hacked the thumb off in a few bloody
strokes, wrapped it in a scrap of fabric ripped from the sheet and
placed it in his pocket. The iHound was still barking: the only
sound in the eerie silence which followed the gunshots. There, in
the inside pocket of a jacket discarded on the floor, Delić found
the bundle of 5000 creds; the iHare transponder tucked neatly
between the bills. Waste not, want not, he thought, picking up the
cash, and left.

Vidmar
was standing outside, sniffing the air and questioning Stanislav
the bouncer when
Delić
walked out of the club looking like the cat who had got the
cream.

‘You’re
too late, skidmark. It’s all over,’ Delić announced
proudly.

‘It that
so?’ Vidmar replied, unfazed. ‘Where is he then,
wise-guy?’

‘Sadly,’
said Delić, enjoying the moment, ‘the good doctor has passed away.
Time of death, oh, about five minutes ago. What were you doing out
here? Biding your time?’

‘Nice
move, shit head. Have you forgotten the deal? Pechev’s going to
have your head on a plate for this.’

‘Fuck
Pechev. I’ve got bigger things in mind.’

‘Oh yeah? Like
what?’

‘Like
Gorksi’s recipe book, all the secrets to Pechev’s empire, stashed
in a locker at the train station. Mine, all mine, baby. Not to
mention the hundred K. Pocket change, but still. Some you win, some
you lose, scarface. See you around.’

And with
that, Delić jumped on his Plasma, gunned the engine and sped
away.

‘What was
all that about?’ Stanislav asked.

‘He
thinks Gorski’s dead,’
Vidmar replied.

‘The guy
you’re looking for? But he just ran out of here, like, five minutes
ago.’

‘I
know,’
Vidmar said, with
a grin. The bouncer had only confirmed what he already knew: the
Bloodhound coursing in Vidmar’s veins told him that Gorski was
still very much alive. He shook a cigarette out of his packet and
was about to light it, when Stan grabbed his hand,

‘Sorry
Vid, you can’t smoke out here. You know the
law. You’ll have to go inside.’

Chapter
18

Lek and
Crystal stole an urgent kiss in the cool of the underground
car-park before getting into
the Proto. ‘Where are we going?’ said Crystal.